


Truth Be Told

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [59]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Exes, M/M, Road Trips, Stomping on Bucky's Heart, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 10:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14998745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: “We’re lost,” Bucky says at last.“Well,” Steve says, “the only place to go from here is down.”





	Truth Be Told

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: Sometimes we have to let go of what’s killing us, even if it’s killing us to let go and Highway rest stop. Prompts from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator) and this [one](http://bleep0bleep.tumblr.com/prompts).

The car breaks down at the top of the mountain, breathes its last wheezing gasp and goes silent on the side of the road. They haven’t passed another car for miles; haven’t seen a house or any sign of civilization for at least that long. And it’s quiet. Jesus, it’s quiet. Like there’s not another soul in the world.

“We’re lost,” Bucky says at last. 

“Well,” Steve says, “the only place to go from here is down.”

His voice is flat, rough asphalt, and though it’s been ages since it was Bucky’s prerogative to care about that tone, to worry about what it meant, what he’d done, what he could do to pull Steve back towards joy, it still makes something inside of him twinge. His hands itch on the wheel, itch to reach out and smooth the lines from Steve’s forehead, to wipe away all that worry and sweat.

But he doesn’t because that’s not his right anymore, not his responsibility. Steve’s moved on and so, Bucky knows, must he. He stares out the windshield for a moment, drowns his eyes in the still beauty that surrounds them. It’s just hard, damned hard, to let go of habits that have lasted a lifetime.

“Any luck getting a signal?”

Steve shifts in the seat, digging around for his phone. “I don’t--no. No. Still nothing.”

Which was how they’d gotten turned around in the first place, relying on GPS up here, in the soft wilds of the Appalachians. So long as they had a signal, Bucky had figured that they were fine; never mind the big yellow signs on the highway that’d said  _ GPS Navigation Not Advised _ . Except the magic of the internet had landed them here, on some back road in the middle of nowhere, and now Bucky’s old Taurus had died, giving up the ghost for reasons unknown, and there was no way to let anybody know where they were. Steve was right: the only way out of this was to go down.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, because he feels like he should.

“Are you?” The words are more animated now, less robotic. “Are you really, Buck?”

Bucky turns his head, jaw set. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I don’t think that you are. I think”--Steve’s eyes narrow, all that pretty blue boiled down to two slits--“this is a little too damned convenient to be an accident and it’s just childish enough, just boneheaded enough, to be something that you would do.”

“You think I want to be fucking stranded?”

“I think you’d do anything you could think of to keep me from marrying Tony.”

There’s a second, a long one, when Bucky is dying to slug him, to swing his fist and knock that self-satisfied,  _ I know you better than anyone _ smug right off of Steve Rogers’ face. He could do it, too, get in one good punch before Steve knew what was happening and they might somehow get out of this, get Stevie to the chapel on time, but he’d stand up there with a shiner, a big fuck-off bruise that would remind everybody who he used to belong to, what he used to say he wanted, the person that he used to be. 

“I only agreed to this,” Bucky says when the feeling passes, when he’s better in control of his voice, “because your fiance asked. This was his idea, Steve. Not mine.”

Steve laughs, a dry, mirthless sound. “Yeah, well. He had this fucked-up idea in his head that you and me should make amends.”

“Why?”

“It bothers him, how much I can’t stand you.” Steve says it so easily, almost breezy, that Bucky feels like he’s swallowed a rock. “He thinks if you and me aren’t at least on speaking terms, it’ll drag he and I down, you know? Explosive baggage unsettled or something.”

The breeze kicks through the open windows and catches Bucky’s cheek, soaks the distance between them with the smell of honeysuckle, the first cool fingers of dusk. He can’t say anything, can’t speak; the words are gummed up too good in his throat. It’s one thing to know that Steve doesn’t love him anymore; he’s been staring that in the face for almost a year. But the notion that Steve can’t stand him, that there’s so much animosity there? God. Bucky had no idea.

“Oh,” he says, more to the steering wheel than to Steve. “Ok.”

“Truth be told,” Steve says in that same _I don’t give a shit_ tone, “Tony’s afraid I still have feelings for you.”

“So he asked me to drive you to your wedding?” Bucky snaps. “That makes no sense.”

Steve looks right at him. Doesn’t bat a damn eye. “Sure it does. What better way to remind me why I chose him than to trap me in a car with you for eight hours, knowing that he’s the one waiting for me on the other side.” He smiles, a little vicious thing. “Head to head, Barnes, he knows there’s no way you can compete.”

Bucky’s heart leaps to his teeth and he can’t breathe and it feels like he’s breaking apart, like little pieces of him are tumbling away and turning to ash and that’s it, that is fucking it, he can’t take this anymore; he’s up and out of the door, running headlong into the sails of the night.


End file.
